John Graham, the Champagne and Aishihik
First Nation man charged with the decades-old
murder of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, was denied bail in a BC Supreme Court
yesterday.

The 48-year-old native rights activist from Haines Junction will remain
in a Vancouver jail until a hearing date can be set January 28 for
extradition to the US.

American authorities have charged him with first-degree murder in the
killing of Pictou-Aquash in 1975.

Graham and the 30-year-old woman were both Canadian activists with the
American Indian Movement and were involved in struggles in South Dakota with
police and the Federal Bureau of Investigations around the time of her
killing.

Two FBI agents were killed during a bloody shootout on the Pine Ridge
Indian Reservation. More than 60 natives, mostly Lakota Indians from the
reserve, were also killed during an extended period of confrontations with
US authorities.

Graham’s friends and family in Whitehorse believe the former AIM member
is a scapegoat and worry he won’t get a fair hearing.

“The relationship between the FBI and the American Indian Movement is not
what you’d call justice,” said Matthew Lien, a friend of Graham’s for nearly
20 years.

Lien, who is well known in the Yukon both as a singer and a human rights
activist, said Graham’s countless stories about the AIM years included fond
memories of Pictou-Aquash, a Mi’qmak from Nova Scotia who, like many other
Canadians, including Graham, headed south to join an exploding rights
movement.

The man who talked about her so lovingly couldn’t possibly be her
executioner, said Lien.

Pictou-Aquash was shot in the back of the head, execution style. AIM
members claim someone took her from Denver to Rapid City, and then to the
Pine Ridge reservation to kill her.

The tensions with US authorities at the time, not to mention how they
handled her death, has raised much suspicion about the FBI’s involvement in
her death.
Graham and his co-accused, Arlo Looking Cloud, as well as Pictou-Aquash,
have also been rumoured to be FBI informants.

After her frozen body was discovered on the reservation, FBI agent David
Price was one of the first to examine the body. He claimed he could not
identify her, despite having interviewed her weeks before.

Price ordered her hands cut off and sent to Washington for
fingerprinting. Her body was then buried as a Jane Doe. Price said there was
no need for a criminal investigation.

The doctor who examined her body said she died of exposure. Only after a
public inquiry did another coroner do an autopsy and found the bullet in her
head.
Graham’s supporters are all too familiar with these troubling facts.

Another reason Graham and anyone connected with AIM have had reasons to
doubt the US justice system is that another Canadian AIM activist was
unjustly extradited in 1976 for the murders of the two FBI agents.

By now it is a well-known fact Leonard Pelletier was sent to the US under
false circumstances.

Amnesty International is watching the Graham extradition hearing closely
because of the Pelletier case.

The John Graham Defense Committee says the tactics used to extradite
Pelletier have already been used on Graham.

Before moving to Vancouver two years ago, Graham lived in Whitehorse with
his longtime companion, Viola Papequash, and their eight children. Here, he
was visited four times by FBI agents.

“They would suddenly appear with no warning,” said Lien.

Graham was fixing his roof one day when he looked down the ladder and saw
them standing there, he said.

They wanted him to give them the name of Pictou-Aquash’s killer in
exchange for immunity, said Lien.